Review: Short+Sweet Cabaret

I once heard it said the great thing about cabaret and variety was that if you saw something you didn’t like, you only had to wait ten minutes for something new. This is definitely true of Ladies from Short+Sweet Cabaret; you will see something new – and very unexpected – every ten minutes, but there is nothing to not like.

Short+Sweet

MC – that’s MC for “Major Cutie”, something we can’t say in a family setting, and “Mythical Creature” – Eamonn George guides you through an evening with Florence Welch, Oprah, a completely delusional Romanian bride, and a Yiddish Grandmother, accompanied by Shanon Whitelock on the piano.

Kate Allnut as Florence Welch paints a hilarious picture of what it is to look sort of like a celebrity, and brings down the roof with some very recognisable numbers (was that Kate Bush at the end? Did it break the fourth wall a little?). Lovelorn Eamonn awkwardly, but determined, sings Lionel Ritchie, and ponders, maybe a little too literally, how women think. Hopefully he doesn’t find love with Livia (Lucy Grasbury), a Romanian bride with a delusional love of Leonardo DiCaprio (before that, Heath Ledger) and a…unique lovechild. Sophie Miller provides some original songs of polite raging-against-the-machine, but also anal sex. There’s a Grandmother espousing the virtues of insulting people in Yiddish (from Taylor Klauss) and Rachel Durham as the best Oprah impersonator I have EVER seen.

‘Do Better’ from Sophie Miller, which includes the line, “Natural selection has died with OH&S”, and a rant about how work is like anal sex, “I mean, it’s EVERY DAY…I’m not sure if I’m talking to my boss or my boyfriend.” (Also, Apple fans, you may want to cover your ears for her last song.)

Taylor Klauss had me the minute she started with the Yiddish in ‘My Mamelosh’; she’s so right, it’s a terrific language to be rude in.

And Rachel Dunham as Oprah. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how excellent an impression it was. That said; I’m sorry, Rachel, you could swear she was in the room, but you will never convince me there ISN’T something happening between her and Gail.

A hilarious smorgasboard of innovative new work, Joanne O’Callaghan has directed pure gold, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in cabaret.